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Doctoral theses defended 1994/95

Claes Hedberg

Thesis title: Theoretical studies of nonlinear propagation of modulated harmonic sound waves

Date: November 14, 1994
Faculty opponent: Prof. Jacqueline Naze-Tjötta, Univ. of Bergen, Norway
Evaluation Committee: Prof. Olle Brander, CTH, TeknD Ingemar Lindblad, FFA, Prof. Anders Nilsson, KTH.
Main Advisor: Docent Bengt Enflo

A sufficiently strong sound source generates in a thermoviscous fluid due to nonlinearity a frequency spectrum consisting of all multiples of the original frequencies. This thesis is examining some of the aspects of this generation for plane waves propagating in a homogeneous medium. The Burgers equation is used as a model and it is solved by the saddle point method for a biharmonic boundary condition for the region after shock formation. For higher intensity waves the evolution is described in the dissipative free limit for an amplitude-phase modulated initial signal.
The number of saddle points needed to obtain a solution differs with the region and the demands on the detailed description of the evolution. An attempt to minimize the number of saddle points to one is made which gives a relatively simple calculations.
The influence of phase between the initial frequencies is examined and is found to have no impact on the amplitude of the Fourier coefficients. But when the ratio between the frequencies is not an irrational number there is influence through the summation of Fourier coefficients.

Claes will go to Austin, Texas for a post-doc position in October 1995.

Nils Tillmark

Thesis title: Experiments on transition and turbulence in plane Couette flow

Date: May 19, 1995
Faculty opponent: Prof. Helmut Eckelmann, Institut für angewandte Mechanik und Strömungs-physik, Universitet Göttingen.
Evaluation Committee: Prof. Håkan Gustavsson, LuTH, TeknD Torgny Lagerstedt, Alfa Laval Separation AB, Prof. Rolf Karlsson, Vattenfall Utveckling AB.
Main Advisor: Prof. Henrik Alfredsson

The thesis is concerned with the problem of plane Couette flow that is one of the canonical shear flows for which hitherto only a limited number of experimental studies have been carried out. Various aspects of plane Couette flow using mainly experimental techniques are reported. It is shown that the plane Couette flow has a transitional Reynolds number around 360 which is lower than in channel or pipe flow and that transition may occur through the formation of turbulent spots. The turbulent spot is studied and its spreading rate in the spanwise as well as in the streamwise directions are determined over a range of Reynolds numbers. At the wing-tips of the spot streamwise elongated waves are observed moving in the direction from the spot centre. The flow outside the wing-tips is found to be forced in the spanwise direction as the spot is expanding and that the spanwise velocity profile is inflectional.
The decay of laminar plane Couette flow is studied and shown to be susceptible to a Rayleigh instability. Calculations as well as visual techniques show that the flow develops stationary spanwise longitudinal roll-cells occupying the whole height of the channel.
Long time one point statistic measurements of the streamwise velocity component show that the flow in regions close to the walls is very similar to other channel flows whereas in the centre of the channel the turbulence level is almost constant and more than twice as high.
Two-point correlation measurements and autocorrelations in the central region show that the flow contains very large scale structures in the streamwise direction with regular spanwise periodicity.
Comparisons between experimentally and numerically obtained databases are performed. Turbulence producing events in the buffer region are isolated, using VITA and VISA techniques. Detailed analysis of the VISA events and extensive comparisons with similar numerical data base for plane Poiseuille are made.



next up previous
Next: Licentiate theses presented Up: Research activities Previous: Research activities



Anders Lennartsson
Tue Dec 12 16:34:50 MET 1995